Floor-covering.



'i NITED STATES PATENT FFICE.

EMILE BERLINER, OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

FLOOR-COVERING.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 656,163, dated August 21, 1900.

Application tiled February 21, 1900. Serial No. 5,998. (No specimens) .To all whom t may concern.:

Be it known that I, EMILE BERLINER, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Washington, in the District of Columbia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Floor-Coverings, of which the following is a spcication. p

In Patent` No. 621,316, dated March 2l, 1899, I have described a Hoor-covering composed of webs or sheets of any kind of straw, grass, or other form of commercial matting, having a layer or :filling of flexible material intimately joined to its back. The layer or filling of iiexible material there described consists of a substance which is putty-like when moist and grows flexible when seasoned. The advantages of such tloor-coverin g are set forth in the patent and may be brieiiy said to consist in its great strength, the ease with which furniture and the like maybe rolled thereover without distorting its strands, its ready adaptability to be cut up into tiles, and its dust-proof and waterproof character.

The present invention consists of an improvement on the floor-coverin g which I have there-described, in accordance with which I use any of the several types of paper-pulp as` the putty-like material. Such paper-pulp is pressed against the back of the matting in a uniform layer in any proper manner, and being moist and semiplastic it fills the interstices on the under side of the matting and becomes intimately joined to the strands of the matting. The pulpy layer is thereupon dried and forms a exible and yet a sti and strong backing which has most of the advantages enumerated in my patent above referred to. Aside from this, the paper-pulp is cheap and its application to the matting is readily made at small expense in the manufacture.

The accompanying drawing represents a section of my improved matting.

The matting A proper may be of any kind found in the market used for floor-covering, and it has applied to its back 'a layer or layused.

ers B of paper-pulp of suitable thickness. As before stated, this paper-pulp is applied to the back of the matting while in a moist and semiplastic condition, and while yet in that condition it is forcibly pressed against the matting. This may be done by an ordinary press or by passing the matting with its coating between rollers. The layer of paperpulp may be formed into sheets of suitable thickness before it is applied to the matting, or the layer of paper-pulp may be formed directly upon the back of the matting by the ordinary process ofpaper-making-that is to say, by filtering a mixture of paper-pulp and water through the matting. In this manner an even and closely-adhering layer of paperpulp is obtained, which is locked to the strands of the matting without penetrating through the latter. After the pulp has been applied in this or any other suitable manner and closely pressed onto the matting and thoroughly dried it may be rendered waterproof by soaking linseed or other oil into it from the back thereof. The anchorage of the pulp to the strands of the matting is not thereby loosened, but is, on the contrary, improved, and this is also the case when other suitable waterproofing material than oil is I am therefore not confined to the use of linseed or other oils.

l. A door-covering composed of a wearingsurface of matting and a backing of dried paper-pulp anchored in the interstices thereof, substantially as described.

l 2. A door-covering composed of a wearingsurface of matting and a backing of dried waterproofed paper-pulp anchored in the interstices thereof, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specication in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

EMILE BERLINER.

Witnesses:

C. E. MARSHALL, HUGH M. STERLING. 

